Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute recently hosted the first ever Career Quest Expo on the Caldwell Campus in Hudson for all of Caldwell County’s sixth grade students. Approximately 800 students and nearly 100 teachers visited the campus throughout the day on Wednesday, April 17 to learn about program offerings and hear from directors about various career training and educational opportunities available through CCC&TI.
CCC&TI partners also helped with the event. Representatives from Blue Ridge Energies, Exela Pharma Sciences, the Town of Hudson, UNC Healthcare, and Wilkie Construction were on hand throughout the day to also talk with students about job and career opportunities that tied in with the programs they heard about across campus.
Students from Collettsville School, Gamewell Middle School, Granite Falls Middle School, Happy Valley School, Hudson Middle School, Kings Creek School and William Lenoir Middle School arrived at the college at various times and started off their time on campus in the gym with a welcome from CCC&TI’s top administrators. From the gym, classes were split into groups and toured the campus to learn more about a variety of program offerings and get a close-up, hands-on look at the training labs for a variety of programs.
Students heard about CCC&TI’s Health Sciences offerings including imaging programs like Radiography and Sonography, the Ophthalmic Medical Personnel program, Human Services Technology, Mental Health Services, Medical Assisting, Nuclear Medicine, and nursing programs. Students also toured the college’s Furniture lab, Welding lab, Biopharmaceutical Clean Room, Construction Trades labs and classrooms, Diesel Mechanics lab, Gaming lab and Information Technology Program classrooms. Student were also able to visit the Electrical Lineworker Training facility and pole yard and learn more about Paramedic and Emergency Services programs as well as Truck Driver Training.
Participating partners hope to make Career Quest an annual event with the goal of informing students at an early age about all the options that are available to them for career training, as well as regional high-wage employment opportunities.
Special thanks to Blue Ridge Energies for providing grant funds to help cover the cost of the Career Quest Expo, to all the partners who helped host the event and to all of our area middle schools and Sixth Grade teachers for their participation.
For more information, visit www.cccti.edu or call 828-726-2200.
“You Broke My Heart!” Granite Falls Middle School sixth graders Bella Bowman left, and Roe Piercy show off a model of the human heart in one of CCC&TI’s Nurse Aide classrooms.
CCC&TI Nurse Aide Instructor Marti Bumgarner, far left, talked to sixth graders from Granite Falls Middle School about the college’s Nurse Aid Training Program.
CCC&TI Welding Program Director Gary Hudson talks with sixth grade students from Kings Creek in one of the welding labs on the college’s Caldwell Campus in Hudson.